Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Atlantic hurricane seasons of the mid-2000s, when the “exceptional” is unexceptional and the “unheard of” is commonplace!

As promised, Dr. Jeff Masters today explains why the remainder of June could be an unusually busy time in the tropics:

[T]he model forecasts over the past few days from the reliable GFS, NOGAPS, and Canadian models are showing a weather pattern more typical of mid-July developing over the tropical Atlantic. This may make for a exceptionally active June. The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is forecast to be far more active and further north than usual, and the GFS model has been predicting that one or two tropical cyclones may form in the mid-Atlantic from African waves interacting with the ITCZ. This is almost unheard of in June. Wind shear over the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic is expected to be much below normal, and with sea surface temperatures 0.5 - 1.5 degrees C above normal, it would not surprise me to see two more named storms this June. One saving grace is that the subtropical jet stream is expected to stay active and relatively far south, with should act to bring hostile wind shear to any storm that might move into the Gulf of Mexico. In addition, a series of strong troughs are forecast to move across the Atlantic Ocean the remainder of the month, which should act to recurve any storm that might form there away from land.

While there is nothing threatening looking out there today, we should keep an eye on the ITCZ just off the coast of Africa south of the Cape Verde Islands, and the region just north of Panama, in the coming days.

Lest anyone assume this is a sign of things to come, Masters is careful to point out that “past history has shown that an active June in the Atlantic has no correlation with hurricane activity later in the season.” That said… my unscientific guess is that it’s probably a sign of things to come. :)

Masters also has a very interesting analysis of Alberto. Among other things, he notes that “the official NHC forecast outperformed all the [computer] models” in predicting Alberto’s track. Way to go, NHC! Masters talks about the Loop Current’s impact, too. Read the whole thing.